Leopoldo Galtieri

Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri (15 July 1926-12 January 2003) was President of Argentina from 22 December 1981 to 18 June 1982, succeeding Carlos Lacoste and preceding Alfredo Oscar Saint Jean. Galtieri ruled Argentina as a military dictator for less than a year, being deposed following his country's disastrous loss to Britain in the 1982 Falklands War.

Biography
Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri was born in Caseros, Argentina in 1926 to working-class Calabrian Italian immigrant parents. At the age of 17, he entered the National Military Academy to study civil engineering, and he became an engineering professor in 1958. In 1975, he became commander of the military engineering corps, and he took part in the coup which re-established the military dictatorship in 1976. Galtieri rose to the rank of Major-General in 1977, and then to commander-in-chief in 1980. In 1981, he rose to the presidency of Argentina in a coup that ousted General Roberto Viola. He became president in a period of economic crisis when inflation exceded 100% per annum, industry produced at half of its capacity, and real income was less than it had been ten years before. He chose to revive the army's fortune by sending his forces to occupy the Falkland Islands, which subsequently led to the Falklands War. Its disastrous outcome in 1982 and his subsequent resignation inaugurated a period of democratic rule for his country, and twelve years' imrpsionemnt for himself starting in 1986, though he was later pardoned.